Tron

All right, give me room. Here we go.

- What's this game called? - This is Lightcycle.

Damn!

You're getting brutal, Sark.

Brutal and needlessly sadistic.

Thank you, Master Control.

We've kidnapped some military programs.

I can arrange more lethal matches. Interested?

Sure. I'd love to go up against one of those guys.

Make a nice break from those accounting cream puffs

you keep sending me.

- What branch of the service? - Strategic Air Command.

Nice.

Hey, look. This is all a mistake.

I'm just a compound interest program.

I work at a savings and loan. I can't play these video games.

Sure, you can, pal. You look like a natural athlete if I ever saw one.

Who me? Are you kidding? No.

I run out to check on T-bill rates, I get out of breath.

Hey, look, you guys are gonna make my user, Mr. Henderson, very angry.

- He's a full branch manager. - Great. Another religious nut.

I'd say, "Welcome, friend," but not here, not like this.

I don't even know what I'm doing here.

- Do you believe in the users? - Yeah, sure.

If I don't have a user, then who wrote me?

That's what you're doing here.

Master Control Program's been snapping up

all us programs who believe.

If he thinks you're useful,

he takes over all your functions so he gets bigger,

and if he can't use you, he sends you down here to the game grid

to get the bits blasted out of you.

- What's your name? - Crom.

I'm Ram.

They'll train you for the games, but...

I hope you make it.

Hey, what's been going on in the other sectors?

You know, I've been stuck here for 200 microcycles.

It's murder out there. You can't even travel around your own microcircuits

without permission from Master Control Program.

I mean, sending me down here to play games.

Who does he calculate he is?

Okay, Clu, tonight we check everything in the right-hand column.

Come on. Come on.

Where are you?

- There you are. Clu. - Yes, sir?

Clu, we don't have much time left to find that file.

- This is top priority. - Yes, sir. I know, sir.

This isn't just correcting my bank statement

or phone bill problem again. This is a must.

- I understand, sir. Yes, sir. - Now, I wrote you.

I taught you everything I know about the system.

Thank you, sir.

- But I'm not sure... - No "buts," Clu. That's for users.

Now you're the best program that's ever been written.

You're dogged and relentless, remember?

- Let me at 'em. - That's the spirit.

Now keep that tank rolling.

I'll try to cover you from this end. Go.

Do you think we can merge with this memory, Bit?

Yes.

Hmm...

Now Flynn is saying to look over in here,

but I don't see what we're looking for.

Come on, you scuzzy data. Be in there. Come on.

Uh-oh! We've got company.

I don't believe this.

- A Recognizer. - Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

There's too many of them!

What is this?

Aah!

Damn it!

- Get out of here! - Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Busted again.

God. And that was my best program.

Got a pirate program here. Says his name's Clu.

What did he pull?

Came into the system with a stolen password

and we caught him trying to raid a high-clearance memory.

No. I must've gotten in there by mistake. I was...

Who programmed you?

I was...

You're in trouble, program.

Make it easy on yourself.

Who's your user?

Forget it, mister high-and-mighty Master Control!

You aren't making me talk.

Suit yourself.

Get me Dillinger.

- Good evening, Mr. Dillinger. - Thank you, Peter. You can go now.

Yes, sir.

Hello, Mr. Dillinger.

Thanks for coming back early.

No problem, Master C.

If you've seen one consumer electronic show, you've seen them all. What's up?

It's your friend, the boy detective. He's nosing around again.

- Flynn? - Yes.

- It felt like Flynn. - He's still looking for that old file.

- Can't you just appropriate it? - I have.

I put it in my memory, which he hasn't located.

- But he might find it. - I'm afraid so.

I spotted him this time and kept him out.

But he's getting trickier all the time.

I think we should shut down all access until we find that Flynn, just to be safe.

There's a 68.71% chance you're right.

- Cute. - End of line.

"Your access suspended"? "Report to Dillinger"? Come on.

Hey, Alan? You think I could have some of your popcorn?

Yeah, sure.

I don't know what he'd want to see me for. What did I do?

- Sit down. - Thank you.

We've had to shut down all Group 7 personnel, just briefly. Security.

Someone with that access has been tampering.

Well, I hope you don't think it's me.

I don't even balance my checkbook on downtime.

I have an abacus at home for that.

Yes, I'm sure. You understand. It should only be a couple of days.

What's the project you're working on?

Well, it's called Tron.

It's a security program itself, actually.

It monitors all contacts between our system and other systems.

Finds anything going on that's not scheduled, it shuts it down.

- I sent you a memo on it. - Part of the Master Control Program?

No. No, it'll... It'll run independently

and watchdog the MCP as well.

Sounds good.

Well, we should have you running again in a couple of days, I hope.

Okay.

Thanks.

Oh, boy.

Mr. Dillinger, I'm so very disappointed in you.

- I'm sorry. - I can't afford

to have an independent programmer monitoring me.

Do you realize how many outside systems I've gone into?

How many programs I've appropriated?

Come on.

Couple of days!

- Well, here goes nothing. - Yeah. Interesting. Interesting.

Did you hear what you just said? "Here goes nothing."

- Well, what I meant was... - Actually, what we propose to do

is to change something into nothing and back again.

Then you might just as well have said, "Here goes something.

- "Here comes nothing." - Right. Mmm-hmm.

Let's clear the area.

Yeah. This is the big moment.

I know this'll nail down your theory that the scanned UV beam

is superior to that single-pulse exposure.

Laser activity will exist in 30 seconds.

Put on your goggles.

Leave the bank in your own...

Let's see if we got the green light.

Is the target area sufficiently shielded?

- Yeah, they verified the safety... - Twenty seconds.

- Looks good. - Let her rip.

- Fifteen seconds. - This is what we've been waiting for.

Ten seconds.

Five seconds.

Perfect.

- Congratulations. - Beautiful.

- Hi, Alan. - You two having fun

- disintegrating things down here? - Not disintegrating, Alan.

Digitizing. A laser dismantles the molecular structure of the object,

and molecules remain suspended in the laser beam.

Then, when the computer plays out the model,

the molecules fall back into place and voilà!

Great. Can it send me to Hawaii?

Yeah, but you gotta purchase your program 30 days in advance.

How's it going upstairs?

Frustrating.

I had Tron almost ready when Dillinger cut everyone

with Group 7 access out of the system.

I tell you, ever since he got that Master Control Program,

system's got more bugs than a bait store.

Gotta expect some static. After all, computers are just machines.

They can't think.

Some programs'll be thinking soon.

Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs

will start thinking and the people will stop.

Well, I'm gonna stay around, put some data through.

- See you tomorrow. - Bye.

- Come on. - Did you say Group 7 access?

Yeah. What a hassle.

- I was all set. - Did he say why?

It was something about tampering.

Tampering. You know, Flynn has been thinking about

breaking into the system ever since Dillinger canned him,

and he had Group 7 access.

Flynn had access to you, too.

- I wanna go to Flynn's place. - What for?

- To warn him. - Of what?

That Dillinger's on to him.

I don't see why I have to do that guy any favors.

I don't know what you ever saw in that guy anyway.

I loved him for his brains.

Don't put any change in the meter. We're gonna need it for the games.

Boy, haven't been here in a long time.

Hey, Barbie, up here!

- Let's go. - Don't pull me.

- Where is he? - I don't know. Somewhere in here,

lost in one of his games.